"My first memory, the sky above the burning city"

“The title describes my first memory, the sky above the burning city,” she explains.

The book is priced £20 and available from Petworth Bookshop.

Janet said: “This is my first published book although I have participated in other books including ghost writing other published social histories. It is exciting to at last have a book in my own name at the age of 84!

“The prologue is an account of a chance encounter with a former pilot, a man who came to stay for one night B&B in our home and planned to visit Tangmere the following day. This, to me, meant only one thing: he had served in Fighter Command during the war. My husband had been a Royal Air Force bomber pilot. The men discussed planes and wartime experiences.

“Tomasz had been with RAF302 Squadron, a famous Polish squadron. As far as my book was concerned the amazing coincidence was that he had flown on ops to Coventry on the night of November 14 1940. He had seen the orange sky above the blazing city, the orange sky of my earliest memory.”

Janet added: “The book is set in wartime England and Poland. There are three narratives running parallel in the story. Janet’s story is autobiographical, the memories of a small child, only two years’ old when war broke out in Europe; her earliest memory, the bombing of Coventry, the catalyst for this book.

“Barbara’s story is also autobiographical; her personal memories from the start of the war to her eventual escape from Poland in 1947. She was able to talk through her experiences with me, remembering details of the escapes she endured at the start and at the end of the war and of the years of occupation in between. A story of survival and faith.

“Tomasz is based on the chance meeting in Petworth, outlined in the prologue. His name has been invented and Tomasz’s story is an amalgamation of recorded experiences of pilots from the squadron and accounts of determination and resourcefulness which thousands of Polish pilots demonstrated in leaving Poland to fight with L’Armee de l’Air and ultimately with the Royal Air Force.

“The Coventry blitz the day after my third birthday was crucial to the story. My dad was in Coventry the next morning.

“His comments to my mother when he came home in the evening are still as clear to me as when we were sitting at the kitchen table. He had been in RNVR in the First World War, sunk in the North Sea, missing presumed dead for 18 months. He wasn’t sure he could agree with the Cathedral’s message, ‘Father, Forgive’

“I had to do a lot of research into RAF302 squadron and into the politics behind the story of the attack on Warsaw, the Rising in 1944 and the Polish pilots who came to Britain. I was horrified to learn that the bombing operation on Coventry was code-named Mondscheinsonate – Moonlight Sonata.

“So, the bombing of the two cities and the effect on civilians was crucial to the story. The difference between our two countries after the bombing was that we were not invaded, largely due to the contribution Polish fighter pilots made in the Battle of Britain.”

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